Welcome to Week 189.

This week, we’re launching not just one but two major additions: the Copernicus Update, a free content update for all players, and The Great Hunts Campaigns, a premium paid expansion that introduces three new campaigns, 34 new missions, legendary weapons, and a host of exclusive items and rewards. Plus, we’re running a Double XP event this weekend.

Below, you’ll find a deeper dive into what the free Copernicus Update and the Great Hunts Campaign DLC each bring to the table.

Let’s get into it.


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This Week: Double XP Weekend

To coincide with the Copernicus and Great Hunts updates this weekend, we have a double XP Event. You’ll level up at twice the speed all weekend, until Monday NZ Time.

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This Week: Free Copernicus Update

This week marks the release of our latest major update, Copernicus. This update deepens existing systems and gives users fresh reasons to return to Icarus.

Here's everything you get for free:

• 5 Legendary Weapons
• 8 Workshop Consumables
• 36 Crafted Items
• 1 Armor Set
• 1 Building Set
• 1 New Epoxy Recipe
• 78 New Achievements

At the core of Copernicus is a powerful new tier of boss-related gear. These items can only be crafted using resources harvested from world bosses - massive, high-risk enemies that now offer equally massive rewards.

Blueprints for these new items are now available as mission rewards across Olympus, Styx, and Prometheus. Missions will need to be replayed to gain these new rewards. Some standout additions include the intimidating Black Wolf Armor Set, exclusive planet-crafted modules for your envirosuit, and the deadly new Scorpion Crossbow.


Alongside these items, we’re introducing a new exotic currency: Legendary Biomass. This rare resource is dropped only by world bosses and plays a critical role in powering up one of the most exciting features of this update - Legendary Weapons.

Legendary Weapons are a top-tier class of gear, crafted exclusively in the orbital Biolab. These weapons can be taken down to the planet and customized through a powerful upgrade system. Each has four upgrade slots, and each slot offers three unique upgrade options.

Choose wisely - once you apply an upgrade, it's locked in.


If you want to try a different build, you’ll need to craft a fresh copy of the weapon. With four slots and three options each, every weapon offers up to 81 possible upgrade combinations.

To access Legendary Weapons, you’ll need a Legendary License, which is purchasable with a large amount of Ren. These weapons don’t just hit hard - they represent the apex of Icarus gear and bring a new level of endgame depth and experimentation to your loadout.

And finally, for the completionists, Copernicus also introduces 78 new achievements, spanning general gameplay, Prometheus (New Frontiers Expansion) content, and the update itself. Whether you're chasing milestones or just exploring what's new, there's plenty to uncover.

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This Week: Great Hunts Campaigns DLC

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315290/Icarus_Great_Hunts_Campaigns/
Great Hunts introduces three brand-new campaigns built around branching paths and meaningful choices that shape your experience. Multiple playthroughs are encouraged to see everything they have to offer. These campaigns are playable exclusively on open world maps, and your decisions have lasting effects—altering the environment, unlocking new mission opportunities, and even triggering the appearance of unique creatures across the map.

In total, the campaigns bring 34 brand new missions. These missions are tightly integrated into each campaign’s story and frequently culminate in high-stakes boss encounters. These all-new bosses appear in dedicated, instanced arenas separate from the regular map. These aren’t just more brutal fights - they’re cinematic, multi-phase battles designed to challenge experienced players and deliver some of the most epic moments in Icarus to date.

Completing missions rewards you with powerful gear, including unique Legendary Weapons tied to specific bosses and valuable blueprints to expand your crafting options. The update also introduces five new armor sets, each with distinct bonuses and visual styles to suit a variety of builds and playstyles.

And of course, scattered throughout the new content are new creatures to hunt, study, and survive against - bringing fresh surprises and challenges to the open world sandbox.

Let's dive into each campaign.

Quarrite Campaign

Set in the Olympus map, the Quarrite Campaign follows the emergence of strange underground creatures clashing with the native Caveworms. The story begins with the mysterious disappearance of miners at a remote base, leading you on a journey across Olympus to uncover the truth. Along the way, you’ll unlock two unique armor sets - the Caveworm Armor Set and the Carbonweave Armor Set - and gain access to 11 brand-new boss-exclusive items, including the Quarrite Gun, Drill Arrow, and Quarrite Grenade. You’ll engage in tense cave combat against both the new creatures and hostile Caveworms.

We culminate in an epic, multi-phase boss fight deep underground, where you’ll confront a massive and unstable Quarrite entity. Survive the encounter, and you’ll unlock the Legendary Weapon: Mining Armature—a powerful, upgradeable gauntlet originally engineered for heavy-duty mining, now reforged for combat. Completing the campaign also rewards you with two new character talent points to enhance your abilities.

Garganutan Campaign

Set on the Styx map, the Gargantuan Campaign begins with the urgent mission to track down escaped experiments wreaking havoc across the land. This adventure features 12 challenging missions leading to a showdown against a powerful boss. Along the way, you’ll encounter a unique new creature and discover 13 new items - including the Frenzy Tonic and Sonic Attractor - that provide fresh tactical options. You’ll also unlock the imposing Gargantuan Armor Set, designed for close-quarters combat. The campaign introduces a new workshop item and a growable plant: bananas.

We culminate in an epic, multi-phase boss fight against the formidable world boss, testing your skills and strategy to the limit. Survive the encounter to unlock the full potential of the Anti-Materiel Rifle, along with other valuable rewards that make the battle well worth it. Completing the campaign also rewards you with two new character talent points.

Rimetusk Campaign

Set in the Prometheus region, the Rimetusk Campaign has you tracking down various terraforming enzyme creature experiments taking place across the map. This offers an intense adventure with 11 challenging missions culminating in a climactic battle against a legendary boss. Along the way, you’ll encounter two new creatures and discover 12 new items that expand your tactical options, including the Enzymic Mutation Ammo, Rimetusk Javelin, and Rimetusk Arctic Module. The campaign also rewards you with two unique armor sets - the Rimetusk Armor and the Arctic Survival Armor - designed to help you survive Prometheus’ harsh environment.

We culminate in an epic, multi-phase boss fight that will test your combat skills and strategy. Survive this fierce encounter, and you’ll unlock the full potential of the legendary Tactical Bow, along with other valuable rewards and two character talent points that make the challenge well worth it.


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Content Requirements:

The Great Hunt Campaigns span all three Icarus maps. Everyone with the base game can access the Quarrite Campaign on Olympus, and players with the Styx and New Frontiers Expansions can access the Garganutan Campaign on Styx, and the Rimetusk Campaign on Prometheus (New Frontiers) [/quote]

Playing with Friends

If you don’t own the Great Hunts DLC, you can still play if one of your teammates who does hosts your multiplayer game. Here’s a quick breakdown of what you can and cannot do when playing with them:

• You can view the campaigns, but not start them
• You can play in a friend's campaign
• You can gain all items and unlocks from campaign missions
• You can unlock and craft all planetary items gained from playing missions
• You can’t purchase the Anti-materiel Rifle (Sniper), Tactical Bow or Mining Armature (Gauntlet) without owning the DLC

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Your support makes these updates possible.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/56336/Icarus_Great_Hunts_Launch_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/
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Changelog v2.3.0.139995

New Content

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• Adding Double XP Weekend Stats and Banner
• Added additional fallback case to AIcarusPlayerCharacter::GetIcarusPlayerState
• AIcarusPlayerCharacter::GetIcarusPlayerState no longer returns nullptr when player is sitting on a mount. Fixes issue where mounted players wouldn't be granted account flag rewards on mission end (blueprint unlocks)
• Rate limit Scorpion Carapace and Sandworm Scale on-hit drops to once per second to account for increased fire rate weapons since original implementation. Remove unnecessary Shatter/Felling damage type checks and standardized to Melee/Projectile/Collision/Explosive. Increase conversion ratio to 25 per 1 biomass
• Enable Hardened Magma as a fuel source
• Fixed NOREX Boss Tracker upgrade being uncraftable and old great hunt benches being still shown in Field Guide
• Fixing Mission Communicator Boss images in the widget to show if they are present on the current map or not
• Adding Tooltips the Boss Buttons on the mission commuicator
• Giant Scorpion Boss now is correctly called Giant Scorpion and not just Scorpion
• Fixing Mission Communicator so when it is at the max upgrade status that it displays boss respawn timers correctly
• Fixing Great Hunt Upgrade Functionality for the mission device - it was not showing bosses on the current map at all
• Remove bespoke Highlightable component from Mission Comms deployable that was pointing to an Itemable Row, breaking highlighting
• Added bespoke RepGraphPolicy for BP_MissionBlocker to prevent log spam
• Disabled overlap events on Caveworms and Teenage Caveworms to reduce CPU overhead
• Cave Worms spawned during RG boss fight now clean themselves up after 30s of inactivity
• Added per-difficulty-level cap to maximum number of RG Cave Worm adds that can be active at any time
• Balanced number of RG Cave Worms adds that spawn during each individual spawn event
• COMPLIANCE: Fix processing order on lab poster
• COMPLIANCE: Fix multiple players getting the failed experiment, causing the failure to be locked until each player in the server removes their failure item
• Legendary Sniper Spotter Scope upgrade now highlights NPCs at a distance of 175m
• Added additional checks inside GOAPCharacter::UpdateTalentHighlight to prevent NPCs from making expensive stat checks as often
• IM_D - Fixing Mission Hard Lock as the Drone Spawner quest step was not ticking off as required
• Fixing issue where Creature Spawners did not have a target and where not always scaling via players and difficulty accordingly
• IM_O1 - Fixing issue where one of the NPC's was not appearing on the ECHO Device
• Added stat to data drive animal highlight distance
• Fixed issue where new GH arena biomes were causing existing biome transition MPC scalar values to be always set to 0, regardless of player's location in the world
• Fix issues with instanced levels not being cleaned up/restored properly when the last player leaves. One issue was a historical (when?) bug, the other related to recent (host only) local pause and use of SetActorLifetime
• Fixed issue where SetCharacterVisibility wasn't correctly hiding armour components. Fixes issue where first-person armour was visible when ADS with the Legendary Sniper
• Replaced BP Cave Entrance with a Static Mesh to remove Blocker in K5
• Added rep graph policy rows for BarrierWall and EatingRock BPs to prevent GetGridNodesForActor log spam in RG arena
• Cave Worms that spawn during RG fight no longer drop loot bags that impact network performance
• Disabled InventoryComponent that was on Cave Worms and Teenage Cave Worms to save on actor replication cost
• Replaced BP Cave Entrance with a Static Mesh to remove Blocker
• Committing File to Fix Error - This time the image had been deleted
• Committing File to Fix Error - BP logic was broken
• Adding Checkmark Image on Prospect Unlocks if players have unlocked them (they have been granted the account flag)
• Adding Terrain / GH Prefixes to the 'Requires Mission {X}' on blueprints
• Adjusting Boss Tracking Tab in the Mission Device, so its greyed out with a tooltip rather than being a bright red with text
• Fixed issue where RG juveniles could become invulnerable under certain conditions
• Fixed issue where actors could become invulnerable if their MaxHealth was reduced and the subsequent recalculation set their Health value to 0
• Fixed issue where RG juveniles were adding/removing armour modifier every time their stat container updated
• Fixed issue where RG juveniles would immediately pop out of rolling animation if target wasn't on valid navmesh
• Fixed some BT log spam
• Remove unused boss currency box from Norex workshop tab
• Resaving Account Flags Table
• Setting up the Remainder of the Caveworm Armor and Setting up as a reward for a quarrite mission
• Adjusting Quarrite Mission rewards to fit
• Adjusting Quarrite Armor Item Icon to show an exotic icon on it
• Setup Sandworm & Black Wolf Rewards on Olympus
• Setup Scorpion & Blackwolf Rewards for Missions on Prometheus
• Setup Hammerhead Slug an Lava Hunter Rewards for Missions on Prometheus
• RG_D - There is now sealed cave which the boss busts open when you have closed the Dens, shifting the boss fight out of the cave and into the open, preventing movement issues
• RG_D - Swapping Rock Golems to be the Arctic Versions and increasing the time to spawn from the burrows as it was far too quick
• RG_B - Increasing Caveworm Spawn Distance during the mission
• Increase the emerge range of the Teenage Cave Worms as it was too low for their range
• RG_C - Removing Visible Debug Sphere from Mission
• Slight Adjustments to Biolab Customization pin locations
• Assigning material to the golem gauntlet to what looks like to be the correct material - it was currently unassigned
• Fixing Virtual Stats so Lure Item Wear Rate does not inherit wear rate stats from knives, bows etc, swapping out Bow Upgrade to use the bow item wear stat instead of the generic
• Adding Blueprint Backgrounds
• Swapping Over Achievements to use new Icons
[*] Adding new Biolab Background

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Source: https://steamstore-a.akamaihd.net/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/1805431065347468